UFCThe Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a U.S.-based mixed martial arts organization, recognized as the largest MMA promotion in the world. The UFC is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada and is owned and operated by Zuffa, LLC. This promotion is responsible for solidifying the sport's postion in the history-books.
UFC is currently undergoing a remarkable surge in popularity, along with greater mainstream media coverage. UFC programming can now be seen on FOX, FX, and FUEL TV in the United States, as well as in 35 other countries worldwide.

If you ask a fan of combat sports for an opinion on judging chances are he/she will not only have one but it will involve some sort of negative sentiment about the job being done. Even as recently as last weekend questionable scoring came into play when a head-scratching Split Decision was rendered in a boxing match between Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley where the only three people who seemed to see things in Bradley’s favor were the fighter himself and the two judges who awarded him the win. MMA fans too were treated to a few officials’ questionable observation skills when one errantly ruled in favor of Carlos Eduardo Rocha against Mike Pierce at UFC on FX 3.
UFC announcer and lifelong fan of martial arts Joe Rogan addressed the topic this week while a guest on Bloody Elbow and had a simple, logical solution to the ongoing issue.
“I think they should fire judges that suck,” Rogan replied frankly when asked about how to handle the problem. “I don’t understand how someone can keep their job over and over again while screwing up over and over. What do you call that exactly? Extreme incompetence. How does someone judge any sort of combat sport without at least a passing interest in the sport?”
“If you pulled aside, and I don’t want to name any names, but if you pulled aside some of those judges from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, that has notoriously had horrific scoring, and started asking them about fighters that aren’t fighting in the UFC, would they know anything about them? Would they know anything about who the top judo guy is? Would they even know anything about Gilbert Melendez and how good he is,” a frustrated Rogan continued. “Do these guys know how you set up an Armbar? If I sat them down and said, ‘Do an Armbar on this guy’, would they be able to do that? I think you’ve got to know when a guy’s in trouble and when a guy’s not in trouble, and the only way to know that, is to have actually trained. I don’t think you can be a person who judges martial arts without being an expert in martial arts.”
Rogan concluded his rant by pointing out his own passion for MMA, implying officials who aren’t genuinely invested in the sport will never dedicate the kind of respect and attention it deserves in order to eliminate the blatant butchery of scorecards.

Its a good point. Having guys that are training in martial arts/ex-fighters etc would make the best judges. The only thing is that you have to ensure that these guys are going to be impartial. They understand situations where a boxing judge doing an MMA fight doesn't have a clue what is going on if they are following the same "scoring" system.

But we are talking about Judges not referees. Referee is the guy in the octagon there to mainly protect the fighter and make sure the rules are being followed. Judges are the guys outside of the octagon sitting in a desk. There are 3 tables each with their own judge all which are at different sides of the octagon so they each have their own angle to view the fight. If the fight goes to a decision they decide which fighter the decision goes to. Lately these judges have been making ALOT of mistakes and bad calls. Which is what Rogan is speaking on.

There you go Xeb. Now you know the difference between a Referee and a Judge.

But we are talking about Judges not referees. Referee is the guy in the octagon there to mainly protect the fighter and make sure the rules are being followed. Judges are the guys outside of the octagon sitting in a desk. There are 3 tables each with their own judge all which are at different sides of the octagon so they each have their own angle to view the fight. If the fight goes to a decision they decide which fighter the decision goes to. Lately these judges have been making ALOT of mistakes and bad calls. Which is what Rogan is speaking on.

There you go Xeb. Now you know the difference between a Referee and a Judge.

Lol im kidding Xeb. I know that you know that i know that you know.

Wait... I don't believe you, do you have a source for this ridiculous claim?

I agree with Joe, completely.

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Lol just re-read what I posted. I was posting quick from my iPhone, I meant that I agree, but then we'd need herb reffing all the fights to fix the bad reffing problem as well. Not that the refs do the judging xD

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If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. ~ Thomas Jefferson

I agree with the sentiment..in fact I think all decisions should be reviewable, and say if a larger panel re-watch the fight and determine the judges made an 'obvious' error in any round, they should face consequences.

I also think that when a fight is reviewed, and it turns out that it wasn't really a close fight, and the original judging was wrong, they should just overturn the result.

In this time of video replay and infinite angles there should be no reason why a bad decision should stick. Of course its impractical to review tape right after the fight and tell everyone to go home and they'll them tomorrow who the winner is. However, it really wouldn't take too much effort or money to have controversial decisions reviewed after the fact and possibly overturned. To have the only judging be exactly at the time of the fight, when every casual fan has better viewing access than the judges is retarded.